Jacke

If I was in charge, I'd retcon the hell out of WWD? and change it significantly. Spoiler for those who haven't played the arc.

Cool! Thanks for posting those amazing screenshots of a rare event. It's before my time. I didn't get into City until 2005. But I've mained an AR / Devices Blaster since then. 😺 EDIT: I think the big beasties are Krakens. The Rikti use them.

I've had similar thought processes, but it's for the Chance for -Res Procs. If they're slotted in a Power that already provides -Res (like Cold Domination's Sleet) and there's not a better use for the slot, I leave it there. But many I've swapped out. Used to have it on Defender's and Corruptor's Radiation Blast's Neutrino Bolt for use on any target but especially the hard ones. But for both cases, I decided it was better to go for the 6-IO set bonus instead.

What @Sovera said, @Snarky. It's advice to you. It's your Toon and you build and play it how you want to. I do know that data-mining plays a part in deciding when to take a Powerset through a revision. I suspect to get that review would be better initiated by suggestions based off of how unequal Dark Armor and Fiery Aura are with their little-to-no KB Protection and no KB Resistance--which every other Melee AT Protection Powerset has oodles of, with only Fiery Aura getting some compensation in the form of moar damage. While Dark Armor gets burdened by high Endurance costs as well. Having the +End power in Dark Melee doesn't help the Dark Armor Toons with another Melee Powerset. Isn't Triage Beacon in Traps ? (My Robotics Mastermind is Bots/Traps too. 😺 ) Ah, you mean Repair, which became Maintenance Drone ! Damn that looks cool. My current build has it, though only with the Base Slot. Build is from 2023 and Toon is still L15, so doesn't have it yet (L18). And the build doesn't have enough Slotted Accuracy in the Pet Summons Powers (see below). That will need changing when I do a new build. Not all changes come from data mining. The ability to pick at Level 1 either the Secondary T1 or T2 Power has been a long standing request. Being forced into the Secondary T1 Power--the only Must-Take Power--has been a problem with some Toons for a long time. I thought it would be a hard change, not realising that the code already existed for VEATs over L23. If that was the only Power Pick Level change, I would have been happy. Getting the downleveling of the Primary T8 and T9 and the Secondary T7, T8, and T9 was welcome.... But damn, is L20 to ~L32 full of Power Picks with far too few Extra Slot Picks now. 😺 Oh, wow, is this ever true. On top of all those toggles, the most powerful self-heal in the game, but needs to hit mobs to heal and costs a lot of Endurance. Sure, that can be mitigated, especially with IOs. As to what would be done with Dark Armor, we don't know. I've loved some Powerset changes. Others have been somewhat to a lot frustrating. But there are quite a few Powersets that need some attention. Hopefully beneficial. I know @tidge mentioned this. The original Afraid effect made the mobs run away. Around Issue 2, most Powers with that were changed to the Terrorize effect that made the mobs tremble in fear on the spot, but if attacked they can counter-attack somewhat. Overall it's called Fear, with most instances of that now being Terrorize and showing as that in the Real Numbers and on the screen status bar. Still some sources of Afraid, damage patches I think, others too, can't remember for sure. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Afraid https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Fear Forgot about that one. (Hey, I'm getting over a cold. That I've been able to post at all...except in the Kerbal Space Program forums.... Damn, things are rough there. KSP 2 is in bad shape (and well beyond my hardware's ability) and now the studio making it is gone, destroyed by the Empire Take-Two Interactive. And only a line saying things will continue and dead silence for a week. I fear for the future of a game, KSP, the original, that I can play and love as much as City. Without the KSP forums as a central community for the players to share mod info and communicate and be a community....) Okay, now I'm really feeling down.... 😿 I logged in my CB Dark/Dark Tanker who's all of L7 and popped up the /linkinfo for Cloak of Fear. Herm, still shows 8ft Radius, 10 Target cap. Let's look at the CoD2 page: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.dark_armor.cloak_of_fear&at=tanker Herm.... Doesn't have the funky code line adjusting MaxTargets with Gauntlet that I see with other Powers, just a line saying the Tanker has to be 5s out of a Mez before Cloak of Fear will do anything. CoD2 reflects what's in the game code but sometimes it's not quite the whole story. I'm going to assume that Cloak of Fear on a Tanker should be 12ft Radius and 16 MaxTargets. You should test it. And I think you'll need to use Taunt to draw in the punters to fill that AoE. Well, let's see. Use the usual max case at L50I of going against +3L targets (+4 versus a T3 or T4 Alpha Boost), so base 48% chance ToHit. Final chance is Base Accuracy x (1 + Slotted Accuracy + Global Accuracy) x ( Base Chance ToHit + ToHit Buffs + Target Effective Def Debuffs - Caster Effective ToHit Debuffs ) Let's consider those last 2 to be 0. 0.67 x ( 1 + 0.609 + 0.54 ) x ( 0.48 + 0.06 ) 0.67 x 2.149 x 0.54 0.778 77.8% From the Activate Period, that's checked every 5s. Against +3L Targets, the Purple Patch effects are to reduce Buffs and Debuffs to 65% and Mez Times to 65%. So, even without Debuff/Mez Resistances: -5% ToHit for 5s reduced to -3.25%. 7.45s Mag2 Terrorized reduced to 4.8s. It's similar to what I found a few months back with Pets (who the vast majority do not benefit from the Caster's build's Global ToHit, Global Accuracy, or Level Boosts). For Pet Builds, I have 2 Rules I follow so I don't have to calculate for every case: Slot Pet Summons Powers with ED-capped Accuracy. If the Pet has important Powers with less than 1.2 Base Accuracy, the build really needs Tactics. Even a MM's weak Tactics makes a major difference. For Cloak of Fear, if you had ~96% slotted Accuracy, the final ToHit above would have been just above 90%. Needs either more Global Accuracy or Tactics to push it to 95%. And the issue is even if the Notoriety is lower, +3, sometimes will still encounter +4s. Lower Notoriety and Cloak of Fear becomes more effective. But I really dislike having such situational powers. Especially one that always soaks up a lot of Endurance/s from a Powerset already bad for that. I've considered Cloak of Fear in builds with 6 HOs: 3x Acc/Mez 3x ToHit Debuff/EndRed, with Global ToHit and Accuracy and EndRed backing it up. Then I saw that was a vast investment--more than any other Power needed--and what it was doing to the build. I knew I could get more out of the build by skipping Cloak of Fear and going with another Power and putting those Extra Slots and build resources elsewhere. It's your Toon, @Snarky. Play it how you want it. Others question why I take Soul Transfer. I question why they skip an AWESOME Power !!! I even take it on Defenders via Dark Mastery. I even had it on my Rad/Rad Defender once--where the build was really screwed up, really needs Mace Mastery--and remember self-rezzing during a Zombie invasion and...it...was...AWESOME!!! But Cloak of Fear.... Alas.... Long ago Cloak of Fear was nerfed into the ground harder than Regeneration. It's sad. I'd like it to be a better Power. That's why I don't take it. That's why I spend time spelling out how bad the power is. Why I bring it up so many times where I know the Devs read.

As @Spaghetti Betty pointed out that Touch of Fear is only ST for its Terrorize and -ToHit, I have to point out that Cloak of Fear is Base Accuracy 0.67, PBAoE Radius 8ft, Max Targets 10, Mag 2 Terrorize and -5% ToHit (before the Purple Patch has its wicked way with it). Without a lot of attraction, you'll be lucky to have 10 targets in the AoE. And you're going to need a lot of Global +ToHit and +Acc (more than any other Power needs) as well as ED-capped slotted Acc to get that chance-to-hit decent. And then it's still just a Mag 2 Terrorize and -5% ToHit. I did a lot of research and calculations when figuring out what Pets needed to get to 95% final chance-to-hit (because the vast majority of Pets don't benefit from the Toon's build's Global buffs, just the Slotting, and some don't even get the benefit of Tactics), but at least it was rare to find Pet Powers with lower than Base Accuracy 1.0. As it is now, Cloak of Fear is a bad Power that demands too much in slotting and too much from the build to deliver less-than-meh results. Taking it means there's another Toon with Dark Armor that takes Cloak of Fear and thus makes the usage stats for that Power look far better than the Power actually is. Every Toon with Dark Armor without Cloak of Fear is another small step in moving the stats--that the Devs check--in the direction that shouts "Cloak of Fear is bad! A must-skip!" Maybe starting things on the way to perhaps someday it being buffed to better than less-than-meh. This is true, a layering of Defense, Resists, and Heals/other Heal-like-things. It's been true ever since ArcanaVille did a review of the original 4 Scrapper Protection Powersets (Dark Armor, Invulnerability, Regeneration, Super Reflexes) a long time ago when the Earth was green. It's actually true for all Protection Powersets. Dark Armor just did it better earlier. https://web.archive.org/web/20120905195532/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115310

My thinking on all self-rez powers is to leave them with just the base slot and slot them with a L50+5 Heal/RechRed IO (usually Doctored Wounds as that's a Yellow Recipe to craft, use a L30 one, then Market-convert the IO to L50, slot it, and boost it). That way the Toon has better HP after being rezzed and the power comes back a bit faster. Extra Slots should go elsewhere for better use. As for Cloak of Fear, as I've expressed elsewhere, that one is such a poor power that I skip it, even on Dark/Dark Melee Toons. (Hopefully some day it will be buffed.) That you're pushing to a higher Level in your build means you realise its weaknesses that are barely propped up by the rest of the build. There has got to be another Power you could pick that has better utility.

The net effect of that is that an -X% Resist Debuff provides +X% Damage increase outside of the Enhancement system. So even if there's a couple of Kins on the team maxing Damage Enhancement, you get +X% more Damage. The worst diminishing of this -Resist Debuff would be by the Purple Patch. For the usual worse case, a +3L target, that would reduce the values of debuffs to 65%. So 15% would go down to 9.75%. But that would mean +9.75% Damage on the debuffs targets for everyone on the team for 30s.

NO! I'm Spartacus!!! Oh wait, I'm not. 😺

My experience is low. And all my Dark Melee and Dark Armor builds are being reviewed for updating. But I only take Oppressive Gloom on my Dark/Energy Tanker to combine the Stun aura with the many Stun attacks. And I've decided Cloak of Fear is a bad Power and there will always be a better Power to pick in any build. I go into that more in this post. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/51311-relearning-an-important-lesson-about-dark-armor-and-knockback/#comment-646869

@tidge has a lot of good points. For Shield Wall, I love to get them to the 4-set bonus, +4.5% EN Res. In the following MA/SR build, I took the 4 Shield Wall sets (it needed Weave too) to 1x 4-set and 3x 5-set to also get 3x +2.5% Damage (overall the build gets +21.5% Damage). Scrapper MA-SR.20240415.SoulM Infiltration TT Weave Presence [i27p7[ @Jacke - Jacke Bruce.mbd More info on this example: For Martial Arts, I dislike Eagles Claw on all ATs, so I only take 5 Powers from it: Storm Kick, Cobra Strike, Crane Kick (don't worry about the KB, just try to use it as a finisher or just run after the mob to hit it again!), Crippling Axe Kick, and Dragon's Tail. For Super Reflexes, I also take 8 Powers, just skipping the T9 Elude which isn't really needed on a good build. The 3 Passives are vital to get for the scaling Resists (against all but Psi) as HP sinks. Important to also take the Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses specials to add more Resists. And more Resist IO set bonuses to have a good Resist base for the scaling Resists to build upon. This way the hits that slip past the Defenses don't chip the Scrapper to death.

I wonder if this is an unanticipated side-effect of the Auto-Exemplaring to Mission Level, but the spawn defs in the Mission are at a higher Level than the highest Level of the Mission.

What the Flea said (he is a wise Flea). Further and maybe a bit differently. I love love love Secondary Devices and especially that wonderful power Targeting Drone. Turn it on, it become a big opening attack Damage Buff as well as a constant Damage Buff. Better, it does this with just its base slot slotted with a +3L ToHit SO or a L50+5 ToHit IO. While Aim & Build Up can help, using those Powers interrupts what Blasters need to do: BLAST. Blasters need to defeat the threats faster than those threats can defeat themselves/the team. The key power that allows this to happen for Blasters is actually in the Secondary Powerset: the Sustain Power. Whenever the Sustain Power(s) become available, they should be taken immediately in a good tough Blaster build. Two examples: Devices' Field Operative, Atomic Manipulation's Metabolic Acceleration. Most Sustain Powers are toggles, but some are click Powers, and Darkness Manipulation's is a Ranged Attack. Besides other effects, they provide a lot of +Rec and +Regen. Back when Invention Origin Enhancements were available but Fitness wasn't an Inherent Pool, on my Assault Rifle / Devices Blaster I got as many +Rec IO set bonuses possible so I could limit the Inherent Pool to just Swift (which I used to speed up Hover), not needing Stamina, freeing more Power Picks for other powers. Then I didn't have to worry about the Blue Bar, just about worrying not getting in too deep. But now with Sustain Powers, a reasonable Blaster build only has to worry about the Blue Bar when being Sapped and worry about Health when in way too deep. Blasters with a good build and that Sustain Power working for them are like a mini pseudo Ranged Regen Toon. That's the foundation of a good Blaster. The other major component of a good Blaster is knowing how to deal with being Mezzed. The Blaster's Primary T1 and T2 Powers and the Secondary T1 Power can still be used while Mezzed. The second ATO set Defiant Barrage special Enhancement, Rech/Chance for +Status Protection, and its Superior version. Slotted in the Blaster Primary T1 or T2, this allows the Blaster to build and maintain a Mez Protection shield. That means they get their other Powers available despite getting Mezzed. Put these into a good tough Blaster build and learn how to run the build in the varying combat environments, solo and teamed, Missions and Task Forces. The Sustain Power and the ATO special keep the Blaster blasting. The Player needs to learn the build and when and how to attack to defeat the mobs and keep going.

Cloak of Fear. I've often considered it. Perhaps with 6-slots, 3x Acc/Mez HO, 3x ToHit Debuff/EndRed HO. It's a high End/s cost toggle in a set with an overall high level of End/s for its toggles. Fear is nice, but I want to hit mobs in Melee Range to apply the -ToHit. And that beyond slotting, it's going to need a goodly amount of Global Accuracy and Global ToHit at a minimum. Then I think of the hard times, against Targets that are +3L higher, thus Purple Patch effect is at 65%. -ToHit values cut to 65%. Fear duration cut to 65%. And I'd not thought of it, but you're right @tidge, there's the effect on the Streakbreaker too. Then I consider I'm wasting 1 of 24 Power Picks and 5 of 67 Extra Slots in the build on a Power that's still bad. Getting 6 HOs that aren't cheap. That even having the Power in the build is affecting the stats that the HC Devs look at. They see if most Dark Armor Toons don't have Cloak of Fear, then it's more likely to be considered for a redress and perhaps improvement at some time in the future. It comes down to we should not include bad Powers in our builds. There's likely another Power that can be taken that will do effectively more to help the Toon during play, even with just its base Slot. When I've been running with the skills Players and Leaders from Everlasting TFs, on those TFs with high Mez/high KB threats, they pack extra Inspirations with the highest Protections per Inspiration. They find the threats in a TF that need a good tough Tanker build, then back it with enough Inspiration boosting to guard them against those threats. The Tanker has those Inspirations ready and knows when to gobble them and what to do. Even to handle Ghost Widow Mag 100 Mezs. Can give enough coverage to get through those known threats. Dark Armor has 0 KB/KU Protection and worse 0 Resists. (Fiery Aura now gets a petty 1 KB/KU Protection in Temperature Protection.) As I indicated above, while Scrappers and some other Toons may be able to put up with operating with no or low Protection in the threat environment, it's another case for Tankers. Tankers should have 10 to 14 KB/KU Protection at a minimum, so it's going to be IOs and IOs set bonuses for Dark Armor and Fiery Aura Tankers. But they won't have any Resists so when their Protection is breached, they often go flying. This tends to be a fateful event. It is stupid to gimp 2 of the Protection Powersets in a way that can only be patched with significant and expensive build resources that the other Protection Powersets get and better by just picking and using 1 or 2 Powers. At least give Dark Armor and Fiery Aura 4 KB/KU Protection and some Resists. That way they need to allocate less IOs/IO sets bonuses to KB/KU Protection than now.

New version of the BadgeReporter popmenu now released! Download it here! Change notes in the 2nd post of this thread. Installation and usage covered in the 3rd post of this thread. Version 20240501a release for Homecoming 20th Anniversary Event, 2024 May 01 Wed BadgeReporter.20240501a.mnu

I've heard that once getting KB Protection to either 3 or 4, to be better against usual sources of KB needs Protection of 10 to 12; 7 or 8 doesn't really provide much benefit over 3 or 4. I tend to follow that rule in my builds. I also have a Claws/Dark Armor Scrapper that I made for @ineffablebob's Classic Hero Challenge: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/24761-the-classic-hero-challenge/ Making the toons and playing the game as much as possible as it was on Release. I took Super Jump as the Travel Power but didn't take Acrobatics for the KB protection. Instead, I learned to live with Knockback, effectively using it to redistribute my Toon around the battlefield. I modify my keybinds a lot and I used these two to get into Melee range and scrap (which I tend to do on Melee ATs anyhoo): Q "follow" A "targetenemynear$$follow" Using them, I could stand having no KB Protection on a Scrapper that just needed to keep attacking to keep Follow Up boosting Damage. On toons with more complex Melee Powersets and a Toon trying to control the mobs with Taunt effects, getting knocked back would be more frustrating.

Excellent post, @Glacier Peak. The other advantage Aid Self has over the S.T.A.R.T. temp power Med Pack is Aid Self is available in all game content, while most non-flying temp powers are disabled in a lot of the content, like iTrials.

Hi, @TG BrainFog! I strongly suggest you join the Mids Reborn (MRB) Discord (and prior to that, create a Discord account if you don't have one yet). Invite link here: https://discord.gg/eDkpdtKZ That way you can ask how others solved some of the issues with MRB on Linux. You could also give details to the MRB devs (Zed and Metalios) on the exact issues with MRB on your Linux distro and your X Window manager. There may be some ways to adjust the scaling and if the current scaling options are not enough, they could potentially be expanded. It also helps to present your use case to the MRB devs. There may be some work being done on an MRB successor, but considering the small size of the team and the great difficulty involved, it's going to be a very long time in development and will be ready when it's ready.

Shouldn't call it "Gadgets". That's the internal (and original) name of "Devices". Could lead to confusion.

Ah, planning to go bowling with Hellions in Atlas Park, I see. 😺

Tactics is also needed, even if just the Base Slot, to get the Henchmen hitting often enough. The vast majority of Pets, including all MM Henchmen, do not benefit from the Caster's Global ToHit and Global Accuracy bonuses; MRB has this wrong (and is such a huge bug it can't be fixed). MM Henchmens' attacks also have a mix of 1.0 and 1.1 Base Accuracy. Thus a MM build needs to follow both of my workaround suggestions for builds with Pets to get their final ToHit chances close to or at 95% in +4L content (which because the Pets don't get the Global Level Bonuses from Incarnate powers is actually +4 to the Pets): The Pet Summon Power needs to be slotted with ED-capped Accuracy, 94 to 96%. If important Pet attacks have under 1.2 Base Accuracy, the build also needs Tactics; even just a L50+5 ToHit/EndRed IO in the Base Slot works wonders.

Hey, if I've had to put up with the weird body-form animations in so many cut-scenes for years, everyone has to! (Not to mention dangerous belt ornaments.) 😺

Immob powers do that if they're configured properly. They need to give the mobs Immob'ed NOT KB Protection but just a lot of KB Resistance. That way there's some KB, under 1, so it is shown as KD. I think most Immob powers that should be recoded this way have been. But a check of the Power in CoD2 can confirm.

<Neo> Whoa.... </Neo> Last thing I expected was free-form verse. Feels like I'm in a small night-club. Let's get into the mood.... Cosmic, man! 😸 A rather complex power. Thanks for the explanations, everyone!

Been there, done that since 2006. 😸 Since I started maining an AR/Dev Blaster. Now with Buckshot, Flamethrower, Ignite, and Full Auto each slotted with a 6-set of Artillery for the big +Range and the sweet, sweet +R Def bonuses. Back then I also read a City-of-Heroes forum article on the AR/Energy Blaster, the true Master of Cones. With Energy Manipulation's Boost Range power, got crazy. But I preferred the powers in Devices. Targeting Drone alone makes Devices the best Secondary evar! But wait, there's more! Cloaking Device Field Operative, Trip Mine, and Gun Drone, oh my!

I asked in the Gold Standard Testers Discord (where the Closed Beta Testers hang out with the Devs) about Range in the PPM formula. It's the Base Range. As @arcane pointed out above, it's Radius in the PPM formula, so +Range wouldn't affect it. But in fact, everything in the PPM formula is from Base values (including the non-Arcanatime Cast-Time) except the Recharge. I imagine so its calculation is mostly simple and only needs adjusting from the slotted and Alpha Boost Recharge Reduction. Excellent point! But I find on some powers with under-80ft ranges (Cone Range AoE Attacks, I'm looking at you!), upping their range improves the chance a particular attack will actually have more than the max-targets in the cone and thus max-out the effect. So many times (Cone Melee AoE Attacks, I'm looking at you!) it's hard to even have max-targets in the AoE. My thoughts are similar. I often look at a full 6-set of Artillery on Cone Range AoE attacks for the big +Range as well as the sweet +R Def bonuses.